Where would 1998 Jordan rank today?

[HeartBreakKid]

If some people think LeBron is the best player in the NBA. I take Jordan over him every day of the week.

35 year old Jordan couldn't do what 35 year old Lebron did though. That version of Jordan relied a lot on mid range jumpers and couldn't playmake or rebound like Lebron.

What are you talking about? Lebron would never come even remotely close to the scoring load Jordan had on that team. Scoring 30% of his team's points. Lebron is at 23%.... Lebron would have to average 34 points per game to have similar scoring impact on his team... 8 points more he is currently averaging... And mind you, Jordan played in era of significantly harder time to score because defenses allowed to be played. Jordan had that year bigger usage than lebron EVER has had.... Talk about carrying a team... Gimme a break. If it would be about playmaking and rebounds, Westbrook stomps on both of them....

What does Russell Westbrook have to do with anything?


Lebron James could obviously average 34 points per game if he arbitrarily needed to, you think Bradley Beal is a better scorer than Lebron James? Lebron is averaging 8 assist per game, it is not necessary for him to average that many points.


I don't know what you mean by usage. If you mean Michael Jordan was more productive in 1998 when he was past his prime than any year in Lebron James entire career then you might want to look over your facts. If you are talking about the USG stat that isn't measuring what you think it measures...someone who is a floor general and has the ball in their hand is certainly taking on a load and that isn't covered in USG.

[DQuinn1575]

Lebron James could obviously average 34 points per game if he arbitrarily needed to, you think Bradley Beal is a better scorer than Lebron James? Lebron is averaging 8 assist per game, it is not necessary for him to average that many points.


I don't know what you mean by usage. If you mean Michael Jordan was more productive in 1998 when he was past his prime than any year in Lebron James entire career then you might want to look over your facts. If you are talking about the USG stat that isn't measuring what you think it measures...someone who is a floor general and has the ball in their hand is certainly taking on a load and that isn't covered in USG.

LeBron currently is on a below median team - 18th of 30th offense in the league, has not been in the Top 10 the last 3 years. He had been on Top 10 offenses every year 2009-2017.

So you think he could score more, which would help his team's offense, but choosing not to? His TS add on B-Ref is like 28, last 3 years it hasnt been very high - Beal is on a worse offense, but his TS% is better than the team's- he's doing all he can.

Numbers say he really isn't scoring anywhere nearly as well the last 3 years. And its not arbitrary, their offense probably needs to get better than 17th in the league - and knowing him there is a good chance they will.

[HeartBreakKid]

LeBron currently is on a below median team - 18th of 30th offense in the league, has not been in the Top 10 the last 3 years. He had been on Top 10 offenses every year 2009-2017.

So you think he could score more, which would help his team's offense, but choosing not to? His TS add on B-Ref is like 28, last 3 years it hasnt been very high - Beal is on a worse offense, but his TS% is better than the team's- he's doing all he can.

Numbers say he really isn't scoring anywhere nearly as well the last 3 years. And its not arbitrary, their offense probably needs to get better than 17th in the league - and knowing him there is a good chance they will.

Players with high assist do not need to score more points, that is still offensive production. Lebron James lead the league in assist last year on top of volume scoring. If someone were to say a 25/10 scorer is less productive than 30/3 scorer it wouldn't make that much sense to me. I see this a lot with people with high APG, it is not "easier" on the load to play point guard it is probably the opposite.


As for the rest of your point, the Lakers are not a good offense, nor were they last year when they were a championship team. If Lebron James decided to lower his APG in favor of increasing his PPG it would not change that (probably). The Lakers are a middle of the pack offense and not worse largely because Lebron is on it. If Lebron was not on it they would be the worst offense in the league I'd imagine.

It seems like you are assuming that raising PPG raises ORTG.

My point is if Lebron for what ever reason donated the points generated by his assist to his PPG he would arbitrarily have over 30 points - APG should be taken into account for his "load".



The Lakers are not built for offense nor do they have an offensive minded coach (Frank Vogel has never been involved in a great offense that I can recall, and Luke Walton was a rookie coach). Despite popular belief (not being sarcastic, people do believe this), Lebron is not actually the coach.






Perhaps another angle to attack this from. Most people would agree for a myriad of reasons that Wilt Chamberlain is a worse scorer than LBJ and Michael Jordan. Wilt Chamerlain still scored 50 points per game which is obviously much more than LBJ or Jordan have scored. The 62 Sixers were only the 4th best offense out of 9. Increasing your PPG (or load) doesn't equate to superior offense. If we had the internet in 1962 and Chamberlain was averaging only 35 points at this point in the season we could have had the same conversation - "The sixers are only the 5th best offense, why doesn't Wilt just score more and make it better?".

[No-more-rings]

I never realized the Lakers were only ranked 11th in ORTG last year, that's interesting. It's also surprising because i don't know how prime Lebron paired with AD doesn't essentially guarantee you a top 10 offense. Sure they upped it to 2nd in the postseason but it makes me wonder if we're overrating the regular season impact those two had. Well not me at least, i know that Lebron hasn't been the best regular season player since probably 2013, or at least it hasn't been clear cut like it was in a lot of his years.

[Todeasy]

I never realized the Lakers were only ranked 11th in ORTG last year, that's interesting. It's also surprising because i don't know how prime Lebron paired with AD doesn't essentially guarantee you a top 10 offense. Sure they upped it to 2nd in the postseason but it makes me wonder if we're overrating the regular season impact those two had. Well not me at least, i know that Lebron hasn't been the best regular season player since probably 2013, or at least it hasn't been clear cut like it was in a lot of his years.

Fairly sure they were top 5 or so prior to the bubble.

[1993Playoffs]

Top 10. Not the biggest fan of 2nd 3peat MJ. Especially 98. His playmaking/ ball handling and all around game kinda fell off. Much closer to being a volume scorer imo.

[DQuinn1575]

LeBron currently is on a below median team - 18th of 30th offense in the league, has not been in the Top 10 the last 3 years. He had been on Top 10 offenses every year 2009-2017.

So you think he could score more, which would help his team's offense, but choosing not to? His TS add on B-Ref is like 28, last 3 years it hasnt been very high - Beal is on a worse offense, but his TS% is better than the team's- he's doing all he can.

Numbers say he really isn't scoring anywhere nearly as well the last 3 years. And its not arbitrary, their offense probably needs to get better than 17th in the league - and knowing him there is a good chance they will.

Players with high assist do not need to score more points, that is still offensive production. Lebron James lead the league in assist last year on top of volume scoring. If someone were to say a 25/10 scorer is less productive than 30/3 scorer it wouldn't make that much sense to me. I see this a lot with people with high APG, it is not "easier" on the load to play point guard it is probably the opposite.


As for the rest of your point, the Lakers are not a good offense, nor were they last year when they were a championship team. If Lebron James decided to lower his APG in favor of increasing his PPG it would not change that (probably). The Lakers are a middle of the pack offense and not worse largely because Lebron is on it. If Lebron was not on it they would be the worst offense in the league I'd imagine.

It seems like you are assuming that raising PPG raises ORTG.

My point is if Lebron for what ever reason donated the points generated by his assist to his PPG he would arbitrarily have over 30 points - APG should be taken into account for his "load".



The Lakers are not built for offense nor do they have an offensive minded coach (Frank Vogel has never been involved in a great offense that I can recall, and Luke Walton was a rookie coach). Despite popular belief (not being sarcastic, people do believe this), Lebron is not actually the coach.






Perhaps another angle to attack this from. Most people would agree for a myriad of reasons that Wilt Chamberlain is a worse scorer than LBJ and Michael Jordan. Wilt Chamerlain still scored 50 points per game which is obviously much more than LBJ or Jordan have scored. The 62 Sixers were only the 4th best offense out of 9. Increasing your PPG (or load) doesn't equate to superior offense. If we had the internet in 1962 and Chamberlain was averaging only 35 points at this point in the season we could have had the same conversation - "The sixers are only the 5th best offense, why doesn't Wilt just score more and make it better?".

BIg difference between what WIlt was doing in 62 and LeBron today - rest of Wilt's teams had TS% of 45.6%, while WIlt was 53.6% - take out Wilt, and have the team shoot the same % and you lose 599 points -over 7 a game. So, yes, the team's offense was middle of the pack with it, but it would have been awful without him. Attles and Guy Rodgers might be the worst shooting backcourt of all-time. Meschery was a rookie and decent, but was only going to do so much. Gola was a vet, and a good one, but again he never showed to be that much of a scorer. Arizin was probably hampered by Wilt, but he shot as much that year as he did any other. In other words, if Wilt scored a lot less, there would have been a decline in scoring - you're taking away 53% scoring opps and making them 45% - now WIlt may not have facilitated any to make the offense better, but he shot because he was by far the best option.

[Bel]

Jordan's stats weren't great but the Bulls won when they had absolutely no business doing so in the threepeat year. It's clearly super hard: look at what happened to the last potential threepeat team with the Heat in 2014 (2019 warriors didn't really get a fair shot with injuries).

The 1998 Jazz don't look that great on paper but they demolished a talent-stacked Lakers team 4-0, led by the guy in his prime that would dominate the league for several years. That was no free win year.

The Bulls roster was ancient in 98.

Jordan 35
Pippen 32
Kukoc 29
Rodman 37
Harper 34
Longley 29
Kerr 32
Burrell 27

Look at what happened to the players the year after the title:

Pippen - Disastrous season in Houston, poor attitude and played terribly. Never was the same person after the 1997-98 injuries.
Rodman - Out of the league. Cut by the Lakers.
Kukoc - Still a solid player but led a very weak roster to the worst offense in the league. Considering he only really brought offense, yikes.
Longley - Signed to a big contract by the Suns, but we quickly realized he was actually a backup stiff and he ended up out of the league real fast.
Harper - A respectable bench player, knew his limitations, but limited impact on a very bad team.
Kerr - Saw a minutes reduction, but still made a small plus impact for a very good Spurs team.
Burrell - No impact/forgotten bench player.

That's supposed to be the supporting cast for a 35 year old champion? They went 24-11 without Pippen, 61-21 7.24 SRS total. Bill Russell had a better cast than that in 69 and his was still very weak (he was also the coach though!).

The big question is how much credit goes to Jordan versus Jackson, because Phil clearly made a huge impact in keeping the team unity together against a toxic front-office relationship. I don't know the answer. But together they accomplished a miracle.